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Ex-teachers at Miss. school allege unethical practices

JACKSON, Miss. — The principal of a Mississippi elementary school gathered her teachers one week before the May 2012 statewide assessments and gave them instructions on how to help students cheat on tests.

Ex-teachers at Miss. school allege unethical practices

Heidelberg Elementary School, in the Clarksdale Municipal School District in Mississippi, went from a F-rated institution to an A-rated one in two years. Students who scored high on state assessment tests have seen their academic levels plummet since leaving Heidelberg.(Photo: Greg Jenson, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger)

JACKSON, Miss. — The principal of a Mississippi elementary school gathered her teachers into the library one week before the May 2012 statewide assessments and gave them instructions on how to help students cheat on tests, three former teachers who attended that meeting said.

The former teachers of Heidelberg Elementary School would not agree to be named for fear their knowledge of, or participation in, the inappropriate testing practices could jeopardize their licenses.

But they gave similar accounts of how unethical testing practices ultimately raised the Clarksdale Municipal School District's elementary school from failing to excelling in just two years.

You are to pace the students, principal Lowanda Tyler-Jones reportedly told her staff. Keep them on one page or one set of questions until the entire class has caught up.

You are to have students write their answers in the test booklet and not on the Scantron sheets. While they're working, you are to walk around the classroom and look over their answers. If an answer is wrong, alert the child so they can try again.

When you're satisfied that all children have correctly finished that portion of the test, instruct them to bubble in the Scantron sheet with their answers. If they don't know the answers, tell them to leave the Scantron blank.

You are then to repeat the process with the next set of problems until the entire test is done.

“We were supposed to tap on the desks if we saw students had a wrong answer, and that was the cue for them to go back and do it again.”

Former teacher at Heidelberg Elementary School

One of the teachers also said Tyler-Jones locked herself in her office with the completed tests and bubbled in any blanks left by students on the Scantron sheets with the correct answers.

Tyler-Jones vehemently denied any cheating occurred at the school, which now is under investigation by the Mississippi Department of Education. Also denying those accusations is Clarksdale Superintendent Dennis Dupree.

In a letter e-mailed Friday to The Clarion-Ledger, Tyler-Jones' attorney, W. Ellis Pittman, said his client didn't even have access to the tests and therefore would have had no way to alter them. He further denies that any cheating occurred under Tyler-Jones' watch.

At least one of the teachers said she had alerted both Dupree and the state Department of Education of the testing violations. Nothing, she said, was ever done.

"I tried to call Mr. Dupree and tell him, but I never could get him. I would always get the voice mail," she said. "After the third time, I called the state department."

The Mississippi Department of Education could not immediately verify the teacher's claims, said spokeswoman Patrice Guilfoyle.

The department, though, did flag Heidelberg in 2013 for extreme similarity among students' answers on the test, as well as extraordinarily high achievement gain overall from the previous year. The state department ordered the district to conduct its own internal review, which was done by Dupree.

Dupree, who is considered a rising star in education and was profiled recently in the national Education Week publication, said his review cleared Heidelberg of any wrongdoing. No cheating occurred, he said. Case closed.

The Mississippi Department of Education requires anyone with knowledge of possible testing violations or irregularities to report it, according to its assessment standards, but teachers said Dupree didn't want to hear it. One told The Clarion-Ledger the superintendent threatened to fire her if she mentioned cheating again.

Dupree did not return calls and therefore could not respond to that specific allegation, but he has previously said he never threatened teachers for speaking out about matters in which they believe.

Students in grades three through 12 participate in the statewide assessment each May under what are supposed to be extremely controlled conditions regulated by the state education department.

Tyler-Jones felt students were racing through the assessments, not paying attention, and subsequently scoring lower than their actual abilities, the teacher said. So the principal told her staff to pace the kids during test taking.

"And while the kids are taking their time, she told us to walk around and tap, tap, tap," the teacher said. "We were supposed to tap on the desks if we saw students had a wrong answer, and that was the cue for them to go back and do it again."

Other teachers confirmed this practice, but one said that instead of tapping, she verbally instructed students to stop and try again when they answered a question incorrectly.

Pacing students so they all progress through a test at the same rate of speed violates the department's policy, said James H. Mason, the department's director of student assessment.

"If this technique is being used," he said, "it should be reported immediately to the (Mississippi Department of Education) Office of Student Assessment who will determine if this testing irregularity provided students with an unfair advantage or not."

“If this technique is being used, it should be reported immediately to the (Mississippi Department of Education) Office of Student Assessment who will determine if this testing irregularity provided students with an unfair advantage or not.”

Tyler-Jones said she reorganized the teachers and set high expectations for the students who, four months after her January 2012 arrival, scored so high on their assessments they launched the school from an F to a B.

One year later, the school achieved an A, the highest accountability status in the state.

But when those Heidelberg students entered Oakhurst Intermediate School in August 2013, teachers immediately recognized a problem. Many of the children who had tested above grade-level on the May 2013 Mississippi Curriculum Test now could barely read or do basic math.

Dupree and Tyler-Jones said if there's a problem, it's at Oakhurst.

Dupree also said it's normal for student scores to dip after summer vacation and even more so when they enter middle or intermediate school.

One former Heidelberg student scored advanced on last year's MCT2's English Language Arts test even though she said she left about 20 bubbles blank on her Scantron sheet, which is the machine-readable paper on which answers are marked.

Answers not bubbled in are counted wrong. There are 60 questions total on the English Language Arts portion of the fourth-grade test, meaning one-third of the student's answers would have been marked wrong.

"I thought I wasn't going to get advanced, but I did," said the now fifth-grader, who in August tested on a second-grade reading level at Oakhurst. The Clarion-Ledger is not naming students to protect the privacy of their test scores.

Former Heidelberg teachers said the pressure to advance students was intense and that it came from the top.

One teacher said Dupree embarrassed her for her class' low test scores. Another said Tyler-Jones removed her from her classroom because her kids tested poorly.

"We were encouraged to make sure she had the scores she wanted," said the teacher who was removed. "It was more, 'I want this done, and I don't care how it gets done.' "